thank you!

Finally! Thank you!

Hey Jacob, really liked the video as always and I’m planning on running a game for my family, most likely Curse of Strahd, and I wanna start them through the Death House at level 1, and I plan on using your recommended changes, but do you think it would work that instead of Strahd at the end I made it Rahadin waiting outside? Just thought I should wait just a little longer before their first meeting with Strahd, and Rahadin could be there on orders to make sure the house didn’t kill all the adventurers.

Do you think they would set it up with dnd beyond?

My DM used living armor, a banshee, ghouls, a mimic, and the plant guy in this dungeon against us, but it was just a Fighter, and me playing a Wizard, we were both level 1. The Fighter kept going down, and didn't actually kill anything in the entire dungeon as I or a deus ex moxina (no idea if I'm spelling that right) NPC comes in, and helps save our lives. Also the first time going through the house I accidentally burned down the house, but don't worry it got better.

1000 iq

I 100% pitched Scooby-Doo doo/Ghostbusters to my party lol

Yikes

That sounds AWESOME!

ranger shaggy, college of glamor daphne, fighter fred, investigator rogue velma

Oh my god hahahah

I thought that the shambling mound (essentially shambling land) was supposed to be a stand-in for Strahd because he is the land, but that is interesting.

@@HeatherVerhagen I think the implication of the shambling mound was that the cult are frauds who didn't have any real magic (which is also hinted by the bogus ritual books in the secret library, and the non-magical "relics" the cult has collected in their reliquary) and they thought this shambling mound was some sort of cosmic horror when it blatantly wasn't. On the other hand, the cult clearly had enough magic to all turn into fairly powerful undead (I mean, powerful by the standards of a level 2 party) and to be able to reappear as spooky ghosts in the altar room, so...

@@HeatherVerhagen See, I know it's because it is Strahd's self-made phrase via the Tome of Strahd But this is hilarious too

Dear god how the DM didn't decide that you probably got all the townsfolk angry at you for basically worshipping the devil is beyond me haha

I wish I was innocent enough to not get the reference

Dang I don't get it

I think it's from that shitty emo teen harry potter fanfic called My Immortal.

I came to the comments looking for people who also knew. I'm happy I found some.

Utterly based

One of the players in our ongoing campaign found the broom, tried multiple times to hug it (?) and got beaten within an inch of their life. Think they were at 1 hp by the end of it lmfao

Man that broom made me fall in love with DnD. I remember i was playing with some colleagues. One of them was a Drow Elf and i played as a High Elf and became short friends after we where inventing fries in the kitchen of the house. While the rest of the members went upstairs without us. A dwarf. Pandaren and a harengon. They opened the door and they had to fight the magic broom. Our DM had lucky dice while the other 3 had a few nat 1's and below 10 rolls. The chaos that ensued and them basically almost dying had me and my Drow friend laughing our ass off the whole time. Eventually going down in the dungeon i almost got eating by a door mimic. Man what a time

Which is extremely funny to contrast how One of our party went into its room, got critted by said broom and went down from max HP in one attack. Doubly fun as it proved to be the hardest encounter pre-dungeon as the specter was made virtually incapable by a vicious mockery that made it so it never even touched our characters.

What and play it at level 1?

why is it that i always see your comment on every single one of jacobs videos i mean im not complaining moreover im curious

@@edgelordsupreme3961 he does it to torment jacob of course

Level 1 Tomb of horrors and a lich Tarrasque

ivan vukovic did you pay attention to the name and profile picture? It’s a joke account made specifically to comment on these videos.

I am a sentient sword who lost his parents, got married twice, had children twice, and had the children murdered in front of him twice. Oh and also I'm actually a demon with amnesia.

CoolGreen Bug B-but your a bug?

@@aturtle6270 I use my vampire powers (Which I also Have and if you argue I'm telling Mom) to bend the minds of the weak willed into seeing a bug

@CoolGreen Bug I was gonna say that it was weird you had your kids killed but then you mentioned being a demon and it made sense.

Star Colonel Spencer Malthus: A full trinary of My Chemical Romance fangirls stands ready to conquer your pathetic campaign. What forces dare oppose us? Jacob: Look, buddy, I don't know what you- Star Colonel Spencer Malthus: You dare to refuse my batchall?!

you called?

Never did i think you would be here hi

*vietnam flashbacks*

Crap, I thought it was "right of way"

Did you know there's a paperback book of the entire fanfic? Because the moment I found out I went on Amazon and ordered a copy for my sister, who'd introduced me to it.

Holy shit that's ingenious. Y'all played big brain, and if it was me, the house would not only NOT activate, but it would also lay out a red friggin' carpet, with a tiny fanfare creaking in the floorboards. Lol

I would have applauded. Good thinking, players.

My group has 6 players (barbarian, Druid, rogue, bard, sorcerer, life cleric) so we were able to kill the shambling mound even though it took us some time + a lucky crit & nat 20 on a death saving throw to do it lol

My team actually tried to trick the spirits with the sacrifice and... it did not work. We did still manage to get everybody out alive, though it was very sketchy. One of our party members got engulfed by the shambling mound and before they died someone else leaped in to push them out and take their place while we finished off the mound. It was pretty sick.

@@LinkDawnbringer I just used one of the rats, That seemed to work fine.

Badass

Almost brought a tear to my eye. Wholesome as fuck.

This is literally the most wholesome thing out of CoS

Awww, thats so sweet!

For real! She nailed that makeup!

Seriously it’s awesome

Damn much so!

@Alekxander Hellmold incel

Yeah, she should do it like that more often

believe youre thinking of mandymod's fleshing out curse of strahd on reddit. every part of that strahd revision is fantastic but the death house specifically is great

It's called Reloaded and is an amazing encounter compared to just the mossy shambling mound, it turns into a fleshy mound and it's so beat

I think that's what happened in our campaign. I was confused when I was reading the comments because everyone talked about the house trying to kill them or something while we just severed the ties between the flesh thing and the babyvs corpse and got out.

I like the idea that the couple lost their baby (stillborn), and started or joined the cult in an attempt to bring it back to life. It went horribly awry, as expected.

Bruh my minotaur/orc/tiefling trio of murderers Reborn paladin got swallowed by it and when the other Paladin killed it with a nat 20b and got a "how do you want to do this?" He included that he accidentally sliced off the tip of one of my horns! I have a bit of a phobia of permanent body modification/disfigurement, but played it off and had the Oath of Redemption Paladin feel the now damaged minotaur horn that had been grafted onto the tiefling's head, look at him, and calmly state "he would have killed you for that" and went about his business.

Now I wanna make a super wholesome character with that name, she comes from a very edgy family but she isn't really into that stuff

myimmortal.fandom.com/wiki/Ebony_Dark%27ness_Dementia_Raven_Way

@@TwoHands95 oh, of course

Ya'll know Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way is from the infamous fanfiction My Immortal, right? That's why Spencer's choice to have that name and dress the way she does for the one-shot is so funny.

@@TwoHands95 I knew it sounded familiar!

I mean the thumbnail did say "sucks but not a whole lot"

Have you seen the previous "[...] Sucks" videos? Never be so foolish to already violently shake your head after reading a title :P ^^

Troll in the Dungeon but there's a HOOORRRSE IN THE DEATH HOOUUSSEE!

"There's a Moose! Loose! In the Death Hoose!"

I really love this! I'm gonna do that for my group!

Ooh, I like that a lot.

This is totally brilliant!

I did that lol, there are letters of strand before he was a vampire begging her to come to his estate

What should the DIary say? Incase my players read it?

My group had the same idea to do a fake sacrifice and it also failed. But it was really funny

I believe it says in the module cultists can't decieved.

@@yektaklc4327 But I believe the DM says it's really cool x)

I stacked the HP to max AND made sure the players knew in no uncertain terms this wasn't supposed to be beatable. Also described it as a ball of flesh and bone, resembling similar behaviours as a shambling mound

Me and my party have had many a encounter with brooms it’s become a meme

Well its a death house, not a injury house.

@@lollma0 The ouchie ouch house.

Yeah I've only heard this guy a few times but the sense I am getting is more or less "Making players think they might not be good enough to win isnt okay"

@@Rebellions I think it's more of, "set them up with encounters they can win if they are smart" like.... if you just get jumped and one shot that wasn't fun and it wasn't your fault, there is no "playing it better" it's just "oops, you failed one roll time to die" like things can still be hard, and the player should always have the threat of dying, but getting one shot for no reason isn't fun for anyone.

What's in the windmill exactly?

@@ranpo_edogawa three hags making pastries out of children

Also it’s like right outside Barovia which is the first town most likely. So they will probably be under leveled if they swing by and investigate which can lead to a TPK

@@sanddry738 we almost ficking got them too

@@sanddry738 level 4 and we took down 2 out of three of a fucking hag coven

The shambling mound name was properly John Wick

My team refused to kill the dog

We then pretended to kill one of our party members and then the shambling mound emgulfed the barbarian on turn one which he proceeded to do the nost damage and kill him from the inside

You will get no sympathy from me...you killed the doggy ;-;

Ya kinda messed. You made a sacrifice and got nothing?: lame

That's inspiring

Yeah, but with that HP it doesn't take much to take them down. Also, that level of AC early on is not common. Add a modicum of bad luck to a squishier character of the party and things can go downhill FAST.

Honestly, I figured my players were okay since they had Thomas “The OP AF tank,”

Dex is king. Plate armour gets you 18 ac for 1500gp, whereas just having a high dex gets you 17 ac with studded leather, 45gp. 1 ac is well worth the cost of having far more gold and better initiative and dex saving throws. This is why it's commonly said that dex>strength in 5e.

Dozy150 the difference is that anyone can get plate armor if they have enough money, and your ac can’t be reduced by things that make your dexterity modifier not be applied. Whereas getting 17 ac in that way requires actually getting a 20 in dexterity (something that most characters don’t do), and the ac can be brought all the way down to a measly 12 if you are affected by something that stops your dex from applying to your ac. I speak from experience here. Both are good options, but their downsides should be noted.

@@GuyFawkes051 I mean, you also lose athletics, grappling, most of the better melee weapons in the game. I still think dex is a really, really good stat that every character wants, I just don't think it's necessarily the most optimal.

Or specifically be Embony Raven D'arkness Dementia Raven Way.

I cracked up when he zoomed into her face and she said her character's name. Immediately thought of 3 people from my group 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

🤣

What now, emo or goth? :D Looks pretty Goth to me :D

That was one change I made. the monster in the basement was a tiger that could mimic a baby's voice. Drove the mother mad.

So he is a reverse anime character now.

I did this as a purely solo one-shot to be a late addition to my DM's Strahd group, so it's absolutely possible.

Nah, speaking for my party that JUST did it; 4 Players, Level 2 to start (just to avoid the awkward mid-house levelup), they lucked out and avoided basically every fight by accidentally beelining straight to the end, and still BARELY got out; The Paladin got KO'd baseball diving out of the final door (but they were around to pick him up), and the rest were 1 hit away from death. That's WITH this lower difficulty AND me reducing the damage from the escape.

I think this is an underrated response, to me at least the Death House is kind of a microcosm of CoS and good dungeons in DnD in general; you have to play it smart, be shrewd and pick your battles according to your strength. One thing that's kind of funny to me is that it's quite easy to get the monsters in the house to stop chasing you if you just scooby doo outta there.

Couldn't agree more. The mound isn't *supposed* to be killed - it's a plot device to scare them and teach them that very lesson. You're *supposed* to run.

The warlock is usually downed real quick.

"the party warlock was downed in one hit during the first combat" What else is new?

In my first AL game, my variant human warlock had 16 con and the lucky feat. Final room, the kobold hits us with a fireball and 2/3 of the party goes down. After the bard's cutting words and rerolling my save, I had 1 hp remaining, which let me use a potion to get the cleric back up. I leveled after that one adventure. I also rolled 20 on 2 death saving throws. That was fun after we got a handle on it.

I started running this today. A party of 4 level 2s fought the broom and specter at the same time. The fighter just out right died, and the artificer went down. But everyone else survived. But that spectre was bad news. They loved it though.

Look at the top posts of the curse of Strahd subreddit, it LITERALLY saved me

Goodluck!

Make sure Strahd shows up early and often. IMO he's best played as a man amused by these little adventurers and uses them to relieve the stifling boredom of living in this valley for centuries. I like to try to fool them as a first impression by presenting him as a "tragic, remorseful man plagued by his vampiric curse and misunderstood by his subjects" i like to ask them for help. See, "these people are but mere peasants, vampires are just nightmare creatures to them. Evil to be burned away. They know not that I still feel,(he doesnt) and that, wayward as they are, I still care for them".(he's pulling their leg) I have him send them on a few "humanitarian" missions; kill wolves (that he summoned) cleanse the church (of a vampire spawn he made) and clear a few of the houses of rats and lesser undead (that he also made) Then the REAL hook. The Kolyana family, holed up in the mansion on the hill, have been engaging in domestic terrorism lately. Telling anyone who'll listen that he's some sort of wicked tyrant toying with their lives. Trying to sow rebellion and unrest. Doubtless youve already been approached by them, or will be. They don't understand his position and He'd like to save face with them, but they will not meet with him and his curse prevents him from entering a home uninvited. Perhaps these adventurers could apprehend them? Unharmed of course, if at all possible. He simply wants a chance to plead his case and help to make reparations where he can. My groups monk beat ireena Kolyana half to death and delivered her to Strahd in a burlap sack. Strahd slashed him across the face, leaving him bleeding on the road, and laughed as he bore her away to the castle to turn her. TLDR: Strahd is NOT just a stat block and some spells. He's got huge potential as a manipulator and early on can blatantly stop the party's goals if they arent low key about it, and casually walk away from full combat if he likes.

@@predoarantes4641 Yeah MandyMod did an amazing work to make CoS a really cool campaign

Gods speed... Gods speed..

We named him "caspa the fuck you ghost"

@@kvalvag5934 That is amazing

One of my players ended up possessed by Thorn the whole campaign because she said "he was too cute to let go". 🙃 It turned out great, but I had to be eventually designing a system which would give her a system that, every 5 levels she could get a new flaw, but in exchange I gave her some ghost related abilities, until the kid and her became one single soul. Curse of Stradh reminded me why I love this game.

@@TheBayzent could you post up the system. I'm about to run curse of strahd and one of my players wants to get possessed.

@@TheBayzent actually that sounds great. If you still have that homebrew can you share it? Thanks in advance

Not only that, but it's an especially poignant message for THIS particular campaign! Barovia is full of very powerful monsters and overlevelled areas. Fleeing is entirely appropriate in a horror story. I think that Death House does a great job of setting the tone.

Update: im going to be running it friday, im here to rewatch and take notes now LMFAO

We need an answer

*youre’ *youv

FIREBALL

Wizard that hates people

The one i drew art of and had high rp hopes. She died immediately.

If you want to be technical, the house coming to life (basically killing nothing ending) actually works for not going deeper. You don’t want to make the players feel railroaded and giving them the bad ending is basically a nice way to make them wonder what was deeper but also know they fucked up royally by not thinking it sooner.

@@TheJthedog no, I don't wanna be technical. I want to point out, that, by the looks of this video, Jacob completely butchered the haunting atmosphere of the House by allowing easy escape and turning it from "There's something much bigger in play. Something we don't understand. And it's looking straight at us" to "wooo, spooky Scooby-Doo style mansion with ghosts". If your players feel railroaded in the House full of exploration, treasure and optional rooms it's entirely YOUR fault and your presentation. "I guess we have only one way to go" is a classic storytelling element, that creates motivation, direction and tension all at the same time. Mostly because it can't be dismissed by saying "let's just leave"

@@MrVladDubrovski my dm had the doors and everything be locked behind us. We explored the entire thing and no one died throughout the dungeon from levels 1-3. I almost died on the first session by being yote down the stairs by the armor though. I liked curse of strahd because everything felt like a tactical dungeon crawl where we had to be careful. We rested often but were on edge the whole campaign.

Just thinking back to it that was just the best campaign. Good role play, good atmosphere and story, and good engaging game play.

@@TheJthedog I wouldn't call it railroading to have the doors lock the players in/have the mists trap the players, the world itself is hostile to the players and the house is trying to kill them. Though i do think players shouldn't be forced to enter the house in the first place, but once you are in the house you are stuck.

It's free in WOTC if you want it as a one shot, honestly I think you'd be better winging it. As he said, the dungeon module really doesn't fit the atmosphere of the rest of the campaign, if you give your players more creepy stuff but reduce the enemies on the other hand it can work. Since the players level up reaching checkpoints, play it as a mystery, with creepy immagery (for example, ghostly scenes of the cult replaying, creepy baby wimpers from the attic, etc) you can introduce a feel of uneasiness that works really well and fits it better. When I ran it, the only real monsters were the nurse and the shambling mound, but tge rest of the atmosphere was enough for my players to remember it. It haunts them to this day, in a good way.

TheBayzent , yeah I’m prob gonna do what Jacob did and just run it as a one shot.

Yeah is it up yet or did he pull an oopsie

He'll do what he did for Tomb of Horrors and have it up later.

It's up now! Took forever to upload. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rbhggsqIsc7Vl3U.html

@@XPtoLevel3 Cool! Thank you!

The DM probably just wanted to have it try to kill you anyway

Killing the shambling mound doesn't stop the house from trying to kill you.

No, if the Mound is released, you had already "denied the cult", therefore the house wants to kill you. That said the door one shotting you is probably a dick move on the part of the DM.

my friends insisted second edition is better than fifth

@@crungler Some people like it better, it has it's charm, fights end much faster and THAC0 is a little easier to me than the pure AC. But character creation is too limited for me and wacky experience tables are really annoying. A friend got the pdfs from 1e and it has amazingly asinine things as well (races like elf are classes now).

@@TheBayzent oh yeah, i forgot elves were their own class in 1e, lol